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The quest to identify potentially life-harbouring exoplanets has, thus far, been dominated by a search for Earth-like worlds. However, some scientists believe that so-called ‘Hycean’ planets – up to 10 times larger than Earth, 90 per cent water by mass, and with oceans perhaps thousands of kilometres deep – could potentially host life deep below their surface. And while, at the moment, Hycean worlds are still just hypothetical, researchers predict they could be far more numerous in our galaxy than Earth-like planets. In this short animation, the US filmmaker John D Boswell (also known as Melodysheep) deploys his trademark melding of riveting CGI, dreamy electronica, hard science and pure speculation to explore the contours and composition of these potential worlds, and ponder what life forms might exist inside their waters.
Video by Melodysheep
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Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
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Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
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Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
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War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
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Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes
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Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
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Biotechnology
It’s our responsibility to engineer corals that can weather the world we’ve created
11 minutes
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Physics
Imagining spacetime as a visible grid is an extraordinary journey into the unseen
12 minutes
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Engineering
For one of nature’s great builders, finding a mate means weaving the perfect nest
4 minutes